Anna Panina

Born in 1976 in Moscow. Since elementary school went to amateur art classes. Entered Russian State Humanities University in 1993 to study Japanese and linguistics. Became interested in papercutting under the influence of Zhukov's works and kept it up for a few years.

Graduated in 1998, currently junior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies and a big fan of Japanese animation.

The Red Dragonfly

«Here are some illustrations to a Japanese story "The Red Dragonfly". The story is serialized on the Internet and I like it very much.

Once or twice I have seen V.Zhukov make his papercuts. He used to take a piece of black paper and start cutting, turning it over and over, sometimes upside down, and in a couple of minutes a picture emerged. It was real magic.

Of course I could never come close to his art. But fortunately, it is not necessary to be a real artist like Zhukov to make papercuts, as I wanted to show by these pictures.

I start with a sketch, but one could copy or trace a picture just as well. Then I make a drawing in pencil on black paper and cut it out; anybody can cut along a line, if the scissors are sharp enough. I do not turn the paper over, because I have to see the drawing.

And I do not really cut anything out of the rough sketches, just throw them away».

A.Panina

Clifford Simak

'The Werewolf Principe', a science fiction novell from American writer Cliford Simak, has got the original illustrations made in the technics of papercutting by Anna Panina.